Fong's Kitchen Journal

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Saturday, October 11, 2014

I have been trying out various cartoon character steamed buns lately. I tried the little black sheep (not so successfully), then one of my favourite cartoon characters, Doraemon (see below) And now, Hello Kitty.

You can choose any fillings that you like, but I find that smooth fillings work best if you are making these cartoon character buns, so that the buns will have a smooth surface after steaming. The filling for the Hello Kitty buns is Salted Egg Pumpkin Custard. The main ingredients for the filling are butter, salted egg yolk, pumpkin, Parmesan cheese powder and milk powder

For the bun dough, I used the same recipe as here, except that I added 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. I find the dough is more pliable for shaping, with the addition of baking powder.

Here is a breakdown of how to form the Hello Kitty Bun:

(Makes 10 Hello Kitty buns)

You will need:

After kneading the basic dough, divide dough roughly into:

- 330g to 350g plain dough

- 30g to 50g red dough - knead in a drop of red food colouring

- 20g yellow dough - knead in a tiny drop of yellow food colouring

Keep any remaining dough as plain dough, as you can easily mix in the colours later.

After first proofing:

- Plain dough: make 10 portions of 30g each and 20 tiny balls. The tiny balls are for making the ears.

2) To make the ears: Use a pair of scissor to make 2 small cuts (like making rabbit ears) on top. Place two tiny plain balls behind the ears. Pinch them together to form Hello Kitty ears (the tiny balls help to support the ears).

3) To make the ribbon: Press each small ball flat and form a triangular shape with your fingers. Use a round piping tip (Tip 8) or a drinking straw, dip in oil lightly and press the tip on each triangle shape. Place two triangles just below the right ear to form a ribbon. Stick one "even smaller" red ball on the ribbon.

4) To make the nose: Make an indent for the nose and push in the tiny yellow ball.

5) After second proofing, steam buns over high heat for about 6 minutes. Keep cover on for another minute before lifting up the cover.

6) To draw facial features: Mix a teaspoon of egg yolk with about 1/8 teaspoon of edible charcoal powder (or use black food colouring). Draw Hello Kitty eyes and whiskers (I use the tip of a chopstick for the eye and toothpick for the whiskers). Return to steam for another minute.

1) Mix all ingredients (A) together in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a pot of simmering water.
2) When butter has melted, add in (B) and mix well. Pour into a blender and blend till fine (I find blending is optional).
3) Add in (C), return bowl over simmering water and cook till mixture has thickened.
4) Cool mixture and divide into 15g each.

(Note: The filling recipe makes about 20 portions of 15g each)The filling recipe is adapted from a Facebook user, Samantha Ting. Her original recipe is meant for making molten lava custard bun (流沙包). The steps to prepare the molten custard filling are detailed in her photo album, while her recipe was written in one of the comments of the last picture in the album.

Monday, August 18, 2014

This is the frozen-themed cake that I baked for my little girl's birthday party in May. A simple cake frosted with butter cream, sandwiched with tangy lemon curd, decorated with edible print and a few snowflakes made with royal icing. I wanted to bake a more elaborated cake for her party, but I had just so many things to prepare for her party .... decorations, food, venue, party-invite etc .... that I felt overwhelmed and over...stretched! But the main reason (read: ultimate challenge) for choosing a simple cake: I have no fridge to keep the cake chilled, at outdoor temperature from 9 am to 3 pm! So, practical me opt for a single-tier cake with minimum decoration to ensure nothing melts away in the hot month of May. To beat the heat, I placed the cake in a cake container, and the whole container sealed in a large cooler bag, with four "1 kg" block of frozen ice packs (you can get the ice packs from Daiso at S$2 each). By the time we were ready to cut the cake at 3pm, the ice blocks were still hard and chilled (I was super "kiasi", but better be "kiasi" than to have a ruin cake ^_^).

I also made some frozen-themed cookie pops for her goodies bags. Again, the picture is edible print that I ordered online, and I just stick them on the baked cookies with some royal icing. This is really easy, yet the result is amazing!

Happy 7th Birthday, Kiara!

Fast-forward a few months later ..... I baked another frozen-themed cake on August 9. This time for my friend's daughter. Very simple requirement: She has the frozen-themed cake toppers, so just need a single-tier cake to match the frozen theme. I baked a light chocolate sponge cake and sandwiched the layers with dark chocolate mousse, a thin layer of coffee butter cream and a layer of chocolate mousse with crushed maltesers. The whole cake is frosted with sky blue Italian Meringue Butter Cream. The cake is decorated with "snow" (royal icing) at the edge and bottom, plus some fondant snowflakes randomly placed on the cake.

In additional to the birthday cake, I also baked some mini cupcakes for her. I baked a batch of Medjool dates buttermilk cupcakes just a week back, and I really like them. Very soft texture, just like sponge cake, even though it was prepared using the traditional method of creaming butter and sugar together. The cupcakes are not too sweet, with part of the natural sweetness coming from the Medjool date itself. So I used the same recipe for her cupcakes, plus a bonus: The cupcakes were filled with chocolate mousse in the centre.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

This two-tier birthday cake is especially created for Alison, who just celebrated her first birthday last week. Two basic sponge cakes, 6" and 8", where I sliced and filled the layers with dairy whipped cream, home-made berries compote and fresh berries.

Making the cake begins with a sketch of the draft cake design:

The lower-tier cake was decorated in three shades of pink - dark pink, pink and light pink (2 rows of petal design for each shade). Even though I tested the colours before piping, I realised that the darker shade of pink did not turn out as well as I expected it to be (the bottom two rows). They could have been darker for a better pink ombre effect.

For 2 tier stacked cakes, I always add "support pillars" by inserting a few thick straws (bubble tea straws) into the lower-tier cake and placing a small cake board between the 2 cakes (see here). This will protect the lower-tier cake from being "flattened" by the top tier.

Did you notice the pink disc at the top? The main purpose of this disc is to prevent the toy from sinking into the cream. I found the easiest way to do it - not fondant or chocolate, but simply a piece of light-weight wafer biscuit (a childhood snack!). It works perfectly on the cake, and the splash of bright pink goes very well with the overall decoration too ^_^

Happy 1st Birthday to you, Alison!

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #40: Rainbow and Ombre Party! (March 2014), hosted by Cynthia of The Baking Biatch.

I have prepared a similar papaya soup recipe, using fish head for the stock. Over here, I used pork ribs and pork tail bones instead. Other ingredients for the soup: barley, almond kernels (南北杏), white fungus (雪耳) and dried figs.

黄金麦片虾 (Cereal Prawns)

The recipe is from Kitchen Tigress, and it works very well even for home kitchen. Two important things to note: (1) Use low heat to pan-fry the cereal (use Nestum instant cereal, not oats) and stir frequently, as the cereal burns easily. (2) Use high heat to deep-fry the prawns. When you combine the pan-fried cereal and prawns together, the cereal helps to absorb any extra moisture from the prawns, which give the prawns a crispy texture plus fragrance. Depending on the size of your wok/deep-fryer and the amount of oil used, it is better to deep fry the prawns in batches if you are preparing a large serving of this dish. This is to ensure you do not overcrowd the wok (which will lower the oil temperature).

焖冬菇蠔豉海参 (Braised Mushrooms with Dried Oyster and Sea Cucumber)

This is a typical Cantonese dish for all those important festive meals. My personal favorite and definitely one of those nostalgic heirloom dishes that I will pass down to my daughter and the future generations. Recipe is available here.

腐乳蒸鸡 (Steamed Chicken with White Fermented Bean Curd)

This dish is not my first choice when I'm planning for this dinner menu. Ideally, it should be steamed fish, done HK style. Not just that eating fish during Chinese New Year carries the auspicious meaning of 年年有余, but having steamed fish would give this menu a more balanced overall (my personal view). I did not buy any fish, but I do have a few chicken legs in my fridge which I wanted to clear. So, my practical side wins! But in any case, no ones complain of having this steamed chicken dish, as it was wiped clean, especially the gravy!

You will need: 3 chicken legs (cut into bite-sized), 3 to 4 cloves of garlic (chopped), 1 to 2 tbsp grated ginger, 2 pieces of fermented bean curd + 2 tbsp sauce from the bottle of fermented bean curd, 1 tsp sugar, 3 tsp soy sauce, a little sesame oil, corn starch and pepper, 2 - 3 tbsp water. Mix all ingredients together and leave it to marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight. Steam the dish over high heat for about 12 minutes or till cooked. I added some wood ears/snow fungus for extra crunch to this dish (optional).

芦笋炒带子 (Stir Fry Asparagus and Scallops)

Another festive menu favorite! Not only does this dish looks presentable when you are having guests over for dinner, it is fairly quick and easy to prepare too. I wanted to say "easy" to prepare, but on a second thought, you do need to have basic stir fry skills for this dish to taste good (with wok hei). Recipe can be found here. Tip: Fresh scallops releases lots of fluid during cooking. To minimise this (the extra moisture could dampen the aromatic wok hei during stir-frying), blanch the fresh scallops in boiling water briefly before stir-frying with asparagus over high heat. A dash of cooking wine will up the aroma factor ^_^

Another of my family's favorite dish. Similar recipe can be found here. For this dish, I used roast pork instead of fresh pork belly. Roast pork gives a richer aroma and flavour to this dish. After steaming the prepared yam, roast pork and fermented red bean curd sauce in a deep bowl, let it cool slightly. When ready to serve, cover the bowl with your serving plate and carefully flip the dish onto the plate.

Monday, February 10, 2014

盆菜, or poon choi in Cantonese, has been gaining popularity in Singapore as the Chinese New Year dish. Originally from Hong Kong, poon choi is an indulgent dishconsisting layers of ingredients, separately prepared and cooked, before combining in a casserole or metal basin.

While restaurants in Singapore have been quick to roll out their colourful festive poon choi for dining in or take-away, I have not tasted poon choi before. My family traditional CNY feast is either a spread of Cantonese delicacies or steamboat. The thought of spending a few hundred bucks for food stacked together in a pot does not seem money-worth to me. After all, why eat them stacked together when you can actually savour the separate dishes on their own? And if you were to buy them as a take-away dish from a restaurant/eatery, I wondered just how long have the food been prepared, frozen, before we reheat them at home??? But, as eating poon choi is slowly becoming a trend here, my mum is eager to try it too. And so, I started to google for beautiful bowls of poon choi and reading up the preparation process.

Preparation of the various dishes within the poon choi stretched over two days. This excludes time taken to purchase the various ingredients. While it is possible to prepare poon choi within a day, I find that the flavours of each prepared dishes, especially the braised dishes, needed longer rest time for the flavours to develop.

I will not be elaborating on the detailed recipe for the poon choi. Instead, you can refer to here for the preparation process and recipe, which I have used as a reference to prepare this dish.

For me, I do not start with preparing the superior stock. Instead, I braised the Chinese dried mushrooms with: chicken breast meat and bones, extra chicken feet and fatty pork for the rich collagen, dried oysters (added in at the last hour of braising) and smoked ham for extra flavours. Simmer the dish for a few hours over low heat, cool completely and let the dish rest overnight in the fridge. The next day, the mushrooms have fully absorbed the essence of the various braising ingredients and taste simply heavenly. Carefully remove the braised mushrooms and oysters from the pot. Sieve the gravy and pour the remaining meat/bones back into the pot. Add some more water, bring it to boil and simmer for another 20 minutes. This will give you extra stock to impart wonderful flavour to the other ingredients, such as the pork skin, fried bean curd and radish. With the reserved braised gravy, I used it to cook the sea cucumber. Other prepared dishes for the poon choi include: braised yam with pork in fermented red bean curd sauce, braised pork with lotus roots, homemade meatballs, steamed chicken drumstick with ginger and wine, abalone, pan-fried prawns, cooked pork skin, radish and fried bean curd skin.

If you plan and prepare the various dishes ahead, you find that making poon choi at home is not mission impossible. The final step is gathering all dishes together and stacking them up beautifully.

Wishing all a prosperous Lunar New Year. May the Year of Horse brings good health, fortune and happiness to everyone.

Monday, January 6, 2014

After staying at home to be a homemaker for the past 6 years, one thing that I missed most from work life is the social interactions with my ex-colleagues. So I was very excited when there was a gathering cum a house-warming party on the last Sunday of 2013. I baked this Apple Crumble Tart and a Pandan Kaya Cake for the pot-luck party.

[Note: Original recipe calls for 160g plain flour and 80g butter. But I want to be safe and add a little more flour and butter, to ensure that the dough is enough to fit the pan. It can be very frustrating to be trimming dough just to fit the pan. At the end, I just have a tiny ball of extra dough leftover, which I can just add over for the crumble toppings].

1) For the crust base: Sift flour and icing sugar together. Cut the butter into small cubes and mix with flour mixture. Use finger tips to rub the butter into the flour till the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the egg mixture to form into a dough. If the dough is too dry, add another tablespoon of milk. Do not knead the dough. Wrap in clingwrap and store in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

2) Roll out the dough to fit the tart pan (with removable base). Trim and chill the tart shell for another 15 minutes. Just before baking, lightly prick the base with a fork.

3) Blind bake in preheated oven at 190C for about 10 minutes. Remove baking paper/beans and bake for another 10 minutes. Brush the tart shell with some beaten egg whites and bake for a further 3 minutes. Cool the tart shell briefly before adding the fillings.

4) Prepare apple fillings (do this while waiting for dough to be ready for rolling, i.e. after step 1):
In a pot, mix apple, sugar and lemon juice together. Cook apple on low heat (the mixture will release some liquid) till apple softens. Add in ground cinnamon, lemon zest and soaked raisins. Stir in the butter. Thicken the apple fillings with a little cornstarch solution Remove from heat and let it cool before filling into tart shell.

5) Prepare almond cream: Cream butter and sugar together till creamy. Gradually add in the beaten egg and cream well. Mix in the plain flour, followed with the ground almond and vanilla essence. Mix well. Keep chill in fridge till ready to use.